In theory, the various sections, Snippets Section, Perl Monks Discussion, etc., are supposed to take care of this. All the approved but not front-paged nodes land here. In practice, I spend all my time looking through Newest Nodes -- which includes dangerous unapproved material (ooh!) -- and almost never use the other sections.

On the other hand, things that land on the front page are virtually guaranteed to go stratospheric (or infernal) with the voting. One monk mentioned the time he promoted a reaped node to the Front Page and it promptly went from -6 to +1. As such, promotion to the front page is really like a super double pumped-up-on-steroids ++, so should be treated that way.

(I also, am speaking only from the receiving end of this, as I have miles to go before I can approve.)